Nesting with Style

When Ben Callery, his wife Brigitte and their daughter Evie bought a weary Victorian on a corner block in a sweet little pocket of Northcote eighteen months ago they were like many young “refugees” from Brunswick: looking for flexible space for their growing brood. When a friend’s father put his place on the market they snapped it up, lured in large part by a six-metre- wide laneway running along the northern boundary. Although it attracted plenty of foot traffic, the lane also guaranteed unobstructed solar access for a dark little “rabbit warren” crying out for renovation.

Callery knew the front three rooms were in reasonable condition and could be revived without much fuss. The shabby exterior would eventually need work, but not before a rear, cantilevered addition was created to transform the interior into a light, airy family home with low embodied energy, a flexible floor plan and pockets of “selective seclusion”.

“There were really horrible lean-tos – a disgusting kitchen, tiny bathroom and laundry,” Callery recalls of the original house. “You wouldn’t have even known the backyard existed, it was a rabbit warren to get through all of them. And then this huge shed and a tiny backyard and outdoor toilet.” Beyond that was a massive two- car garage that would eventually become surplus to requirements.

Callery undertook the 12-month build three days a week around his day-job, with help from his dad and several friends. During this time the family crammed themselves into the original rooms at front of the house. Younger daughter Ruby was born part-way through construction. It’s not, he concedes, a strategy he’d recommend to clients, but it definitely made building more convenient and kept a lid on costs.

With a decade of sustainable design under his belt, Callery was about to start his own practice. So whatever he and Brigitte decided to do to their place needed to meet the family’s changing needs while showcasing his design approach and avoiding the temptation to cram in every good idea he’d ever had. The key was a lightweight, well-oriented, heavily insulated construction low in embodied energy and quick to respond to Melbourne’s dramatically changing temperatures. “Everyone seems to think (thermal mass) is some sort of panacea for sustainable design, which is fine, but this was an opportunity for me to think about doing it another way with lightweight materials,” he says. “While mass can help maintain stable temperatures it still does usually require energy input for heating, and has significant embodied energy.”

Eschewing ensuites, the pair opted for several similar sized rooms upstairs and down (all with 1.5–2 metres of built-in storage and close proximity to central bathrooms on each floor), designed to perform varied functions over time: bedroom, study, living rooms, play spaces. The ground floor rooms at the front of the house may eventually become bedrooms for the girls, who for now share a room upstairs. A home office/piano room downstairs will probably become an adult’s living room once an upstairs study is fitted out. An upper level play space beside the girls’ bedroom could be enclosed should the need arise. The varied possibilities are keeping things fresh as well as flexible. “You don’t have to put a label on everything, do you?” Callery says.

At ground level the original dining room was sliced in two, making way for a laundry and small bathroom that in turn made it feasible for the family to stay put throughout the renovation. A central hallway was extended into the heart of the home, addressing a quirk of the old place that meant accessing the rear garden via a side door facing the lane and side deck.

Brigitte was keen not to simply default to the standard open plan kitchen-dining-living room configuration at the rear of the house. With a generous 7.5-metre-wide site and ample northern sun at their disposal the pair had plenty of options. They designed a rear living space that opens onto an airy, double-height void that’s carefully orientated, glazed and cross-ventilated to flood the space with natural light, warmth, breezes and views of the surrounding trees. Varied hardwoods – recycled, re-milled, salvaged, radially sawn and sourced from seconds warehouses – add visual warmth and appealing textures and imperfections.

Within the void at ground level are a rear dining space and adjacent kitchen, tucked deliberately into the back corner for sightlines throughout the house and easy access to the full-width timber deck and garden. Above is a slatted timber study that seems to float, nest-like, amongst the trees. Callery says it was designed to provide selective seclusion from the activity below and from the girls’ bedroom and play space opposite. “What I was trying to create was somewhere I could work after hours, or where the kids could do homework,” he says. The last thing I want to do is be the sort of person who locks themselves away in a room, away from the rest of the family. I want to be part of the family all the time, and be able to work in that environment.”